


Smoke on the water

by mooksiie (kuuhu)



Series: edelweiss [1]
Category: Red Dead Redemption
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Modern Era, Pining, Smoking, still not over rdr...... will i ever be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-22
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2019-08-27 14:21:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16704100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuuhu/pseuds/mooksiie
Summary: He tapped his dirtied fingertips on the steel table in front of him and saw Milton nod, an attempt to prompt him to continue probably, just above his eyeline. With every breath drawn, he could feel the fog dense against his throat. "It was fleeting," he'd become somewhat numb to the harsh beep of the tape next to him, with its glaring red light and steady pace.****1967. Arthur Morgan shot dead by police force, clear suicide by Dutch Van Der Linde and John Marston taken in for questioning. Someone tipped off the detectives that the three would be robbing the city bank that day. They mainly wanted Arthur - his death was a mistake, deliberately covered over now, spread internationally. They wanted answers out of Morgan not a dead body, but they were the ones who shot him.





	1. But some stupid with a flare gun

**Author's Note:**

> I need to update and change the summary so BADLY BUT I HAVE TO GO--- this is a ,, thing,, for my irl John Marston whom I love,,,,, john needs protecting,,,  
> this ship is so underrated and i want to CRY--

"Happy? Yeah, I been happy." He tapped his dirtied fingertips on the steel table in front of him and saw Milton nod, an attempt to prompt him to continue probably, just above his eyeline. He inhaled; the smoke hung stagnant on his lungs and stale on his tongue. With every breath drawn, he could feel the fog dense against his throat. "It was fleeting," he'd become somewhat numb to the harsh beep of the tape next to him, with its glaring red light and steady pace. The questions had been impersonal, a desperate attempt to reach into his soul and tear something from it, but all they held in their palms was a broken locket. "But every happiness is; it ain't like the movies. You can watch it, almost, fleeing back through your mind as you hopelessly try to pull it back into your present. But it doesn't make it. It never does."  
The pen had stayed stationary, ink forming a spreading puddle, just above the yellowed paper. Milton had stopped taking notes for while, busied himself ringing his hands or picking at his nails, but the scrawny notepad never left his wrinkled palm. He sat now, periodically knocking his foot against the table leg, somehow daring the glint in John's eye to return. However they stayed, dull in light, desaturated in the dusk. John stared at him, blankly. "We lived together for a short while, before I married,"  
"You were married?" Milton's interests were suddenly caught - the pen was pressed against the thin sheets. "Is she still in contact?"  
He felt the smoke trail out through his nose. "Yes," he watched every syllable leave his tongue. "And no. He was my only remaining contact with her." Sudden notes were being scribbled across the page; at the start, this sort of behaviour would drive John up the walls, but he couldn't deny the impromptu love interest would catch the eye of the frontpage readers. "I doubt she's dead though," he added, locking his fingers together.  
Milton nodded slowly again, drawing his notepad closer to his chin. "When did you last speak to her?"  
He exhaled, deeply. "Listen, detective, do you wanna hear about Morgan or not?" That shut the old man up. His thin lips quivered at the sudden urgency in John's voice. "Right.. so happiness is simple if you know where to look for it. We didn't, but we did find something."

The clouds rolled over the bronze sky, fleks of golden trailing their way across the musty glass. A singular strip of melting sunlight rested between the thin gap in the curtains; it became the solitary light source for the otherwise darkened room. The gentle hum of the song acted as white noise, but they both knew the silence would bleed them if it weren't there. Sitting, backs against the sofa, legs spread out across the floor, simply listening, drinking in the dreamy air of dusk.  
The record scratched slightly and both the two men moved to change it.  
John glanced at him, a loose smile playing on his lips. "It's my turntable,"  
"It's my record." Arthur smirked, yet still resigned himself back against the seat of the sofa. They always managed to do this: plates in the chairs and arses on the floor. He watched John take the vinyl off and slip it back in its sleeve. "So?" His attempt to make his question assertive fell of deaf ears.  
"It was alright," Running a hand through his dark hair, he back leant over to the turntable, new record in hand. "I told you before though, only some of your music is good."  
"Just because our taste in music is different, don't mean mine is bad," he trailed off and John thought, for a fleeting, blissful second, that he had backed down. "It means yours is." He snorted, returning to his place opposite Arthur.  
"I ain't got enough minutes in the day, Morgan, to tell you how wrong you are." They both laughed at the last remark; it was an overwhelming urge, a surprising relief, the spark that ignited the flame. And they both laughed as if they were the only ones on the planet.

Milton's face had contorted into some knowing look which made John tense up. He watched his fingers gradually stop running against the steel of the smeared tabletop as his words grew dry. He didn't know what use notes of their apartment five years prior would do - Arthur was still dead. They couldn't do much against him now. Milton tapped his pen, almost impatiently, along the spine of his notes. Frowning, John folded his hands into his lap and clenched his eyes shut. 

“You stayin’ tonight?” John lingered, bare arm against the lazily painted door frame. He watched Arthur gently shut Jack’s bedroom door and turn to face him again with softly hooded eyes. He paused for a moment, hands resting loosely in his trouser pockets.  
“I can,” he pulled his arms into a stretch above his head. “If you think you’ll get lonely.” he cooed, a smirk playing at his lips. John pulled his smile into a frown and leant against the wall.  
“What if I don’t trust you to,” he waited for Arthur’s snarky comeback, but was met with a vacant, uninterested expression. He wasn’t listening to him. John took his wrist and yanked him into his bedroom. “Morgan.” he hissed, grinning at the stupidity of the situation. Arthur glanced over to him.  
“Marston?” a sly smile drew across his lips as he shrugged off his shirt. “You should probably shut up now - you’ll wake up Jack.” John huffed out a laugh, throwing his own excess clothes onto the floor.

“Did he stay with you often?”  
“As often as you can when you’re two criminals protecting a kid.” he spat. 

“When’s uncle Arthur coming?” Jack bounced excitedly on the broken sofa. John rolled his eyes, placing a mug down in front of him. “I asked him for apple juice!” he wanted to frown as much as he possibly could when he kept hearing his best friend was one-upping him as a father, but an involuntary smile surfaced instead.  
“Yeah, he’ll be here soon,” he glanced at the partially shattered clock on the wall. “Probably off.. fishing,” which made Jack giggle. “Or something.”  
Silence wasn’t an uncommon guest at their house after Abigail left. While she had Jack a majority of the time, the child couldn’t simply never see his father again. John loathed that sometimes. Then there was a knock.  
“UNCLE ARTHUR!”

“It doesn’t say here you were related.” Milton pressed, attempting to look John in the eye.  
“You don't have to be related to be family.”


	2. Burned the place to the ground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "And Dutch van der Linde? What about him?"  
> The tape ticked, rhythmically, through the dense air. He drew breath in, pushing it around his lungs for a reason to remain silent; he could still feel the sting of the last time he decided not to comply.   
> “He was close with Dutch.. van der Linde. We all were - but especially him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this took... so long to.. update... I'M SO SORRY-- buuutt my john got us both rdr2 and a ps4 for christmas so you guess what we've been PLAYING- ...hopefully their characters will be better written in this chapter because i was only ten days into rdr hell when i wrote the first one.......

It was impossible for John to tell, sitting in an iron safe of a room, cornered and boxed in as if a trapped rodent, how many minutes had dragged on. A grave sickness stuck at the pit of his stomach, rolling over like troubled waves in the eye of a storm; it grew stale in the dull, low-lit room, yet still never threatening to be shown. His fingertips had grown cold in the unknown hours that had passed, gradually tracing his veins up his bruised arms.   
He felt his entire being tense up as the words left the detective's cracked lips. He leant forward, an expectant, somehow intimidating glare smeared on his creased face. Throat closing up, tar dripping slowly down it, John simply stared back at him. The tape ticked, rhythmically, through the dense air. He drew breath in, pushing it around his lungs for a reason to remain silent; he could still feel the sting of the last time he decided not to comply.   
“He was close with Dutch.. Van Der Linde. We all were - but especially him.”

The dew on the low grass glowed the melodic golden of the early morning sun. Only the few, scattered ashes of the leftover fire from the night before painted the field any other than a vibrant emerald. The singular strands laced through his thin fingers, gently caressing his soft skin. He glanced across at the ochre rays melting into deep blue orbs. Arthur blinked; for a fleeting moment the light was shut out, but beamed brighter when it returned. He frowned and John tore his eyes away immediately.   
He heard him sigh, shuffling into a more comfortable position. “Hey,” Arthur began, tugging at the sleeve of his stained jacket. Finally turning to face Arthur again, John rolled his eyes.  
“Mornin’, I guess,” he almost spat, trying not to giggle at the situation. He watched the blonde smirk.   
“Well I don’t think it’s still night,” He retorted, to which John just scoffed. “I hope not anyway.” His stare turned vacant for a moment and John lowered his own. 

“He did that sometimes,” he muttered, smearing the sheet of dust further across the metal tabletop. “Used to tell Dutch everythin’ - then gave up.” He pulled at the delicate skin of his already broken lip. “You’d see them talk late at night when you thought everythin’ was fine.”

The figures stood, close enough to breathe in each others smoke, far enough to ignore conversation. John ran a hand through his hair, eyes fixed on the two men a few metres away. Nightfall seemed to have come early that night and Abigail had taken Jack to bed as soon as the last golden rays melted into the deep velvet sky. They had lived through the day in a melancholy blur of gunshots and bloodshed. She had repeated the same sentence over and over again until something inside John snapped: Jack was too young. He felt something well up in the pits of his stomach, a sigh, an unfulfilled desire - he wasn’t entirely sure, but he felt it pressing against the walls of his mind too. His eyes ached with the bitter sting of lost tears. He watched one figure throw the lit cigarette to the floor, stamp once, and leave in a direction he couldn’t quite make out. One still stood there in the darkness. Cautiously, he placed one foot in front of the other until he could see the lines between his gently quivering arms and the ugly painted sky were clear.  
Arthur didn’t look up from the smouldering flicker of the dying cigarette by his mud-smeared boots. John felt himself melt into his deep silence.   
“He just don’t listen anymore.” his voice was broken, eyes never leaving the ground. “And it ain’t even his fault.” 

“Love did somethin’ cruel to Van der Linde,” John coughed, his breath thick, heavy at the back of his throat. He ran the tip of his tongue across the peeling skin of his raw lip. There was a lot he would give at that moment to feel smoke against his staggered breath, but there nothing except the stale air around him. Milton cleared his throat again, an obvious prompt for John to continue; he frowned deeply. “After his one love was,” he stared at the detective as the words caught in his throat finally left his lips, at the pampered hands grasped the steel and the chipped fingernails that pulled the trigger. He swallowed dryly. “Shot,” his voice was hoarse, broken. “He changed.”

He studied Arthur's face; stared at him watching Dutch retreat back to his room.   
“He don’t mean that,” his flicked down to meet John’s. “He’s just gettin’ real harsh ‘cos he’s stressed.” John nodded, straightening out his shirt, crumpled at the waistline.   
“Yeah, I know. It’s fine.” his words felt stunted, blunt, but Arthur’s gaze didn’t falter.  
“We’ve known him long enough now - you know he cares-”  
“Do we?” perhaps he spoke too soon, too loudly, too aggressively, but the expression painted on Arthur’s face made his mouth go dry. He felt the silence stalk around him in the fragile breeze. 

“I don’t know, John. I don’t,” the words hitched in his throat before he could finally spit out the final word. “Know.”

Milton turned another yellowed page, placing it carelessly on the pile that had collected in front of him. He would like to burn them, John mused, stretching out each numb finger across the steel tabletop, clotted blood catching on the sharp edges and tearing into his worn skin. No one was going to read this pathetic excuse for news, for a police report. Besides, the press were already rolling in rich stories: two outlaws dead - suicide and.. He glanced back up at the detective who was picking at a bit of skin under his nail. He had to do this. For Jack. But the psalms wouldn’t leave his throat.  
“That’s it.” Milton’s eyes darted up in an attempt to meet John’s. “I can’t tell you no more about Dutch.”  
“We had a deal, Marston-”  
“I know,” his breath stung his tongue. “But I don’t know no more about him.”


	3. And fire in the sky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His throat tightened at the very thought of hearing Milton’s harsh, gravelly voice again. It suffocated him, grabbing at his dry mouth, closed throat, and gradually embedding its sharp fingers into his cut skin. “Any last thoughts, Marston?” Milton’s voice cut through air like a knife through glass.  
> "No," he breathed.
> 
> Click

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is.... THIS IS IT? IT'S FIN I SHED??!?!!?! ........i dont know how to feel i m. 
> 
> ......time to write more rdr tyvm

He wished the pain was numb and he couldn’t feel the sting of his poison tears against his scarred face; his raw eyes glistened in the poorly lit room, air dense and heavy with the toll of the years. Each word he spoke radiated its own venom that seeped its way out of the lines it had been confined to. The room seemed to have closed in on him, cutting his breath short, the air stifling around him. His throat tightened at the very thought of hearing Milton’s harsh, gravelly voice again. It suffocated him, grabbing at his dry mouth, closed throat, and gradually embedding its sharp fingers into his cut skin.  
“Any last thoughts, Marston?” Milton’s words were sharp and harsh and sliced through the thick air easily. John would have flinched, he imagined, when he was first sat down in the almost broken, wooden chair, however his cruel words fell on deaf ears now. The detective tapped his heavily wrinkled fingers against the grimy tabletop. He seemed almost bored now, John observed, the same tales being played over and over again in his head. His stories of courageous and loyal young men had lost the spark of interest in the old man’s mind. It wasn’t worth it anymore. The pile of yellowed papers, messily stacked, towered high against the steel of the wall next to them. The first few sheets were creased, corners crushed underneath the abundance of papers on top of them. John watched the detective pick the tower up and neaten each side before setting them down again and placing his fountain pen directly in front of them. Milton moved it, gradually, meticulously, inch by inch, to make it align precisely with the centre of the papers; his fingernails had a line of grime, of shallow dirt, around the tips, ignored, cracked skin surrounding the faded nails. He closed his raw, strained eyes. 

Arthur placed a firm, strong hand on John’s shoulder. He glanced up, immediately melting at the face resting close to his. The simple presence of what used to be his, cleared his tightened airways; he breathed in once, inhaling deeply, exhaling slowly. John turned to look at him, his angular jaw, messy stubble, unkempt, golden hair under his ancient, worn hat. Arthur’s eyes flickered down to meet his own, deep blue crashing like waves against John’s misty green eyes. Something always sparked, began to roar, somewhere deep inside him whenever he watched his chapped lips curl just enough into a small smirk. It was unexplainable, a poet’s words would not be enough to fill the gap between sensation and talk. He was a fire, sharp, sudden crackles and spitting flames, grasping at the dense air around him. His calloused hands had always been steady, the piercing bullet never missing, slicing through the solid air in a singular hit; his mind too, constantly alert, sprinting to always gain something more, to always give something not expected of him, not asked. He used to stand, hands over John’s, straightening his aim, Arthur’s stomach flat against his back. He had seemed to radiate a constant warmth. John rested his head back against Arthur’s broad chest. He wanted to find the steady, comforting beat of his heart, a gentle, constant, thud against his ear, but nothing cut through the silence cowering around them. He felt Arthur’s hand move from his shoulder, fingertips delicately brushing against the ancient fabric of his dirtied shirt, until his fingers laced between his dark waves of hair. He combed through it softly. Each moment his fingers were intertwined in his almost ebony hair, a lightness filled his chest. A white light shone at the corners of his eyes. His charcoal eyelashes brushed against the height of his cheeks, fluttering together. A cloud of mist had slowly drawn back from the corners of his mind, somehow revealing a delicately painted china blue sky. He could reach out and dust the light ocean in front of him with shaking fingers. It was soft, a wall of fragile satin and expensive silks, delicate cotton and gentle muslin. He wanted it against his torn, rough skin, needed to feel the touch.  
He felt Arthur gently pull his hand away from his hair and crouch to sit down beside him. John watched him balance on his heels, then toes, before resting his chin on John's thigh, rough stubble against his rough jeans. Arthur gazed up at him, deep azure eyes unblinking, as if drinking in every detail on his scarred face; he watched his eyes glisten and spark a small fire inside them. Somehow he didn’t feel as if his eyes were fixed on him, uncomfort seemed to never reach the surface. Arthur would be sketching him, drawing out in a thin charcoal pencil, a portrait in his mind. A soft inhale, a gentle exhale - he could finally breathe freely. John felt his breath dust against his upper lip, suddenly the shallow cuts becoming nothing other than a feeling. John wanted to speak, a voice in his head shouting at him to hold his body close to him and never let go. There was an endless list of words, phrases, incomprehensible sentences he needed to cup his hands around his face and whisper into his mouth. He felt Arthur move to lean directly in front of him, hands once more firmly on his shoulders, his lips stretched into a slight smile. He could see small bursts of short, golden hair slipping down from the sides of hat and he wanted reach out brush them, smooth them back, so nothing could obstruct his rugged face. John couldn’t tear his eyes away from him now; the rhythmic beat of his heart increasing its speed as he tilted his head closer to him. He pressed the torn skin of his raw lips against Arthur’s chapped ones, eyes closing gently.

 

John opened his eyes. The low-lit room's musky darkness didn't startle his pupils. He inhaled, smoke stagnant on his tongue and stale in his lungs. “No,” he breathed, staring at the man across from him. “It's over.”  
Click


End file.
